REEL REFLECTIONS

SOME FILMS
ON THE SPIRITUAL SEARCH

David Greiser

Changes that take place in a culture’s worldview do not happen overnight. Film buffs can rummage through the movies of the past 30 years and find films that seem well ahead of their time, philosophically speaking. Many fans of the original “Star Wars” trilogy recognize director George Lucas’s vision of a spiritually rendered world.

On a different, but no less spiritual slant, the late Stanley Kubrick (“2001: A Space Odyssey,” “A Clockwork Orange,” and “Eyes Wide Shut”) often said that he wished for people to leave his films with a deepened understanding of human depravity. Today’s cinematic storytellers stand on the shoulders of their occasionally prescient grandparents in the art of putting spiritual ideas on celluloid.

It is hard to ignore the recent spate of films which deal with explicitly spiritual subject matter. If I were to identify a cinematic year in particular, 1999 would be a good starting place. Within that year a raft of good films dealt with some element of the search for God, life after death, the meaning of being human in God’s world, or the relation of one’s ethical life to God and the life beyond. “Simon Birch,” “Pleasantville,” “The Truman Show,” “What Dreams May Come,” “The Sixth Sense,” “Fight Club,” are all films that explore one or more of these themes in some depth.

Some of these films are outstanding, some quite flawed. In some cases they tantalize the viewer with the promise of exploring profound themes before retreating to safe, formulaic Hollywood resolutions. Three films from 1999 are especially worthy of note (and rental!):

The Matrix. I start with the film most often mentioned in these sorts of discussions. I first heard about “The Matrix” from a 21-year-old film buff in my church. Based on the promotional ads and trailers I would not have bothered with the film, since it looked like just another orgy of special effects and martial arts. I was wrong. My friend tutored me in the movie’s complexites when my 46-year-old-brain could not access its technobabble.

“The Matrix” is a visually groundbreaking cyber-adventure which uses elements of the science fiction and martial arts genres, creating a worldscape in which the nature of reality itself is redefined. The story involves a computer hacker (played by Keanu Reeves) recruited by a band of cyber rebels who have made a disturbing discovery about the world: it doesn’t exist. “The world” is actually a sophisticated virtual reality (or “matrix”) created by evil beings who lull humans into going unthinkingly to dead-end jobs to make money to buy things they do not need. The plot revolves around the attempt of the rebels to free humankind from its enslavement.

In addition to undermining western materialism, the film borrows liberally from Christian symbols and from the Christian story itself. The names of the characters (Trinity, Neo, Morpheus) play on Christian ideas, and the film’s climax involves a death and resurrection to rescue a lost humanity. Unfortunately, the story retreats to a predictable Hollywood denouement complete with martial arts and automatic weapons fire. The motives of the evil beings who create the Matrix are never really explained. Despite these flaws, this is a wonderful film to discuss in a group of spiritual searchers.

The Green Mile. Director Paul Darabont’s adaptation in this film of a Stephen King novel was nominated for “Best Picture” by the Motion Picture Academy. The world of “The Green Mile” is Louisiana’s death row in the 1930s. Into this world comes a new prisoner, an enormous black man with an otherworldly ethos.

John Coffey was convicted of murdering two little white girls. Since he seems strangely calm and transparent with the prison staff, some guards begin to question his guilt. In time, Coffey exhibits supernatural healing powers, which benefit the guards’ families. In a concluding sequence we are led to see Coffey’s execution as a sacrifice that absorbs the wrongs of racist, angry people. Again echoes of the Christian story are apparent.

American Beauty. This film won the 1999 “Best Picture” award. I include it in this review not for any overtly spiritual themes but for its critique of affluence, emptiness, status-seeking, and suburban alienation, as well as its celebration of beauty. Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey), the film’s main character, is despised by his wife, unneeded at his job, and disrespected by his daughter. Through an uncomfortable awakening to sexual desire for his cheerleader-daughter’s friend, Lester reconnects emotionally with the reality of beauty.

There are several soliloquies on the pervasive beauty in the world and on human ingratitude for its existence. These themes give the film the feel of a suburbanized, twenty-first century Our Town. The ache for relationship and community in the story is a feeling postmoderns know well.

Looking for a few good rentals? Take your pick. Story is the prime medium through which meaning is revealed in postmodern culture. These creative films are among the mythmakers of the day.

—David Greiser, Souderton, Pennsylvania, is a pastor at Souderton Mennonite Church and a preaching teacher. He teaches a Sunday school elective on faith and films. In the next issue of DSM, he will review the new Harry Potter film.